Fertility,Reproduction & Sexual Health

A Research Brief Prepared for the University of Texas at Austin Population Research Center Kristine Hopkins, Celia Hubert, Kate Coleman-Minahan, Amanda Jean Stevenson, Kari White, Daniel Grossman, and Joseph E. Potter Introduction Female community college students who have a child while in college are 65% more likely to drop out than those who […]

A Research Brief Prepared for the University of Texas at Austin Population Research Center Kari White, Daniel Grossman, Amanda Jean Stevenson, Kristine Hopkins, and Joseph E. Potter Introduction A substantial gap exists between the scientific evidence demonstrating the safety of abortion in the United States and public opinion about abortion safety. For example, […]

A Brief Report Prepared for the University of Texas at Austin Population Research Center Letícia J. Marteleto, Abigail Weitzman, Raquel Zanatta Coutinho, and Sandra Valongueiro Alves Introduction The epidemic caused by the Zika virus has been a major public health shock for Brazil, particularly for reproductive-age women. The virus is transmitted via mosquito, […]

A Brief Report Prepared for the University of Texas at Austin Population Research Center Abigail Weitzman Introduction Maternal mortality in Peru declined over 70 percent between 1990 and 2015, from approximately 250 deaths per 100,000 live births to 70 deaths per 100,000 live births. Women’s education levels simultaneously rose over the same period. […]

A Brief Report Prepared for the University of Texas at Austin Population Research Center Daniel Grossman, Kari White, Kristine Hopkins, and Joseph E. Potter Introduction In 2013, the Texas legislature passed House Bill (HB) 2, a law that restricted access to medication abortion, banned abortions after 20 weeks “post-fertilization,” required doctors who provided abortions […]

Today the Council on Contemporary Families releases the third set of papers in a three part symposium marking the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. The first two sets of papers described changes in America’s religious and racial-ethnic landscape in the half century since it became illegal to discriminate on the basis of religion, skin color, national origin, race, ethnicity or gender.

It’s appropriate that we turn last to how women have fared since passage of the Civil Rights Act, because the addition of the word “sex” was a last minute addition to the bill. Opponents hoped — and supporters feared — that threatening to make discrimination on the basis of sex illegal would kill the bill, and when it passed anyway, few policymakers took the sex provision seriously. Although the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission immediately moved to ban job ads that specified a particular race, it refused to do the same for the sex-segregated want ads that were the norm in 1964.

Recent headlines such as “Men, Who Needs Them?” and “Why Fathers Really Matter” showcase a growing debate about the importance of including men in discussions of gender inequality. Two new studies from Gender & Society turn attention to areas in which men have long been ignored: at home, in the study of conception, pregnancy and childbirth, and at work, in the caregiving professions—particularly nursing. New research demonstrates under what conditions men’s contributions are slowly becoming more visible and what the benefits of that are (and can be).

Today, almost 40 percent of all babies in the United States are born to women over 30, and almost 15 percent – 1 in 7 – are born to women 35 and over. As the chart below of historical trends in women’s fertility rates by age demonstrates, birth rates to women aged 15-24 have […]

What do you plan to give your valentine this February 14 – a bouquet of flowers, a heart-shaped box of chocolates, a candlelit dinner? Have you considered the gift that keeps on giving — a sexually transmitted infection? Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are infections that result from the transmission of certain bacteria or viruses […]

A new report, “The Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing: First-Ever Estimates for the Nation and all 50 States”, raises the question of how much divorce costs taxpayers. This is an intriguing question, but unfortunately this report falls short on providing the answer. In the worst traditions of “advocacy science” the authors pick […]